The invention relates to a combination of an intramedullary nail and a targeting and/or nailing instrument. More particularly, the invention relates to a spring clip coupling system for connecting the targeting instrument to the nail.
It is known to combine intramedullary bone nails with a nailing instrument in order to drive the nail into the bone channel. For locking nails that are provided with transverse bore holes for driving locking screws, it is also known to simultaneously implement the nailing instrument as the locking screw bore targeting instrument. A targeting instrument serves to locate the transverse bore holes that are not visible in the bone with the locking nail implanted. For this purpose, the targeting instrument, which simultaneously serves as nailing instrument, has, in addition to a connection end with the one end of the nail, a targeting arm that extends approximately parallel and at a distance from the nail. So that the transverse bore holes in the nail can be located, it is required that the nail has a predefined rotational position relative to the targeting and nailing instrument. It is therefore known to provide the end of the nail with one or more axially parallel recesses and the targeting and nailing instrument with one or more axially parallel protrusions. If the protrusion and the recess engage with each other approximately positively, then the approved rotational position is achieved. Furthermore, it is also known to combine the targeting instrument and the nail in an axially fixed manner with each other with the help of a screw. To this end, the hollow end section of the nail has a threaded section and the connection end of the targeting device is provided with an axial screw, which is screwed into the female thread of the nail in order to axially clamp the parts to each other. Such a nail and targeting device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,681 and in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 10/864,039 filed Jun. 9, 2004.
Before the nail and targeting device are connected or screwed together, conventional systems require that the nail be held in the approved direction against the connection end of the targeting device. To accomplish this, both hands of the user are already engaged. Thus, it is relatively complicated to also execute the described screw connection.